George Yazbeck How do you resolve conflict management at work or at school?
1. Pick one example of a conflict that you encountered at work or school.
2. Explain how you managed the conflict.
3. Which of the 6 C’s of conflict management (communicate, circumvent, confront, conform, compromise, collaborate) did you use to resolve this conflict and why?
One example of a conflict that I encountered in (grade) school concerned a group assignment (an Ethics course paper) that needed to be done within a short period of time (with the addition of having group members that were somewhat incapable and mediocre when it came to demonstrating team effort and equal cooperation).
Being that I was viewed upon everyone in the group as the most trustworthy and hardworking person, I was unsurprisingly deemed the team leader and with that, came the responsibility of assigning duties and looking over each team member’s part of the project. Not being an avid leader myself (I usually am a follower or at most, a passive leader), I took control and split up the work that needed to be accomplished evenly (with emphasis on catering to the strengths and weaknesses per person; I gave each a research area to do using that guideline). I also made a schedule and used a student email account to create a thread for communicating with all team members; more so, I periodically checked on their collective progress until they all finished their part.
Following this, I would proofread my team members’ work and met with each person to go over needed adjustments. Lastly, I combined all the research parts and added my contributions to the final draft before submitting the team project to our teacher. Although this process went fine, I do admit that there were some drawbacks as a whole in tackling this group effort that required me to use some of the 6 C’s of conflict management. To elaborate, I needed to use stern but friendly communication to ensure undivided attention among the more nonchalant and inattentive team members. One team member in particular spoke out of my accusation on their irresponsibility to not adequately research their part of the project, to which I confronted them with the warning “If you don’t do your part, your name will not be acknowledged ensuring you a lesser grade than those who have contributed more.”
Fortunately, that person listened and I didn’t have to worry about their slacking off too much after the fact. Ultimately, I tried to instill straightforwardness toward work procedures that needed to be accomplished (i.e. citing work properly) and collaboration (as in teamwork, in helping one another provide research in areas of close overlap). Overall, I handled this conflict with responsibility and attention to communicating clear project goals and roles to the best of my ability despite working with people who weren’t performing to the highest of their abilities.
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